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Thrice Great Moly
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| So, I finished my conversion.
Strangely, as soon as I did that, the fire in my head went out, everything hurt less, and I felt totally free to just be myself.
It is amazing how much of my inner turmoil was as a result of that process. | comments: Leave a comment   |
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Apart from my astounding Kung Fu and large collection of swords, I am completely unprepared. Ranged weapons are basically the way to go with zombies, since close-range attacks leave you open to zombie biting, and the inevitable contraction of Zombieism.
My basic plan is to head straight for New Hampshire, where the population is less dense, and less anti-gun, go straight to a KMart and clean out their rifle section.
Then, I will seek out the head zombie, and shoot at him until he dies. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| The age old question... when it comes to religion and spirituality, which is more important? Personal philosophy, or personal experience?
What does it mean when what you believe and what you see are so totally at odds that they can not be reconciled with anything other than, "clearly, I am being hounded by demons who seeks to confuse me," or else, "perhaps I was wrong from the start, and there isn't actually a world." At this point, you really have to choose between what is in front of your face, and what you have faith in.
Maybe it is true what they say. Reality is an illusion. Spiritual reality doubly so. Or, as Buddhists say, "What have gods to do with religion?" | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| | "Experience without thought... the pulling apart of experience into isolated moments, and saying, 'this moment is pleasure,' and 'this moment is pain,' is about the best way I can think of to bury your consciousness of time so that there is no narrative... no awareness of the profound sadness of what we are doing to reality. For fuck's sake, man. Wake up." | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Just before I woke, I had this dream about Dionysos, which, while brief, was both vivid and lucid, and also completely uncharacteristic of a dream of the sort that people usually have about gods.
He showed me a dish of meat. Beef, cut into long strips, cooked in a sauce, appearance, taste and smell were included.
"My mother used to make this," he said, "I was wondering if you could perhaps make it."
Based on the flavor, I am guessing that it was slow cooked in chunks of apple, tomato, onion, and very little else. Maybe some olive oil.
Several days ago, by this point, I had a dream about Hekate, that began with an OBE, and ended with the following conversation, of which I only remember half.
...
"And what of Apollon?" she asked.
"A fool." I replied simply.
She laughed knowingly, nodding. "And what makes you say that?"
"Not his words, but his actions. Look at the mess he's made for himself. He can't handle his followers."
She sighed. "He's young. They're all young. Apollon... Dionysos... all the children... Too young. Give them time."
"Mph. It's frustrating. I'm mortal. I expect them to know better than me. Time after time, they prove that they don't. I'm tired of watching. I'm tired of talking about it."
"Your gift is insight. With time, and purification, your eyes may rival the gods." | | comments: Leave a comment |
| "So... this Jewish conversion thing. Is it pass/fail, or do you get a grade?"
"No, it's pass/fail."
"And if you fail?"
"I'm done. I'm just done. I can't get married, I can't observe Shabbos anymore. I don't know what I'll do. Probably go for Neoplatonic faith... hold onto the Unity with all my might. Maybe be reunited with Dionysos. I miss him."
"I used to be very big with Dionysian things. I'm done with that part of my life."
"Dionysos gets a bad rap. He's not who people think he is. He's not a drunk. He's not an addict. Addiction is the very opposite of everything Dionysian. He's about freedom, and will, and being your truest self. Enjoying life. Addiction prevents you from enjoying the substance. If you're a pagan, and I know you are, and you ever have trouble with addiction, Dionysos should be the first god you look up. Not the last. Also, he knows a lot about ritual, initiation and magick. The idea to use Greek creatures as a part of a magickal system was originally his suggestion. Don't believe the bad press. Especially if you are into Pan, you should look him up." | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Yesterday, I woke up feeling mostly better from my two week plague of doom.
I went out to the C.D.A. office to get my cert. After getting lost, and walking to South Boston from South Station, I discovered that the course I took was too advanced for the level of certification I wanted, that they would therefore not certify me, and that I could loose my job.
I had planned, that evening, to do a rehearsal for the dramatic piece to be presented on the Commons on Sunday, but everyone bailed except for Bill, for various reasons. This is what I get for not being able to pay my friends for participating in my projects, I guess.
But Bill and I stood out in Harvard square with a big neon sign that said, "Auditions Now!" -- attracted some really weird people, and one guy who said he was down with out glamour bomb and was going to bring a video camera. (Hermothon on YouTube?).
Then, I had a few beers, and gave Bill dating advice. This was especially hilarious because the dude is ten or fifteen years older than me.
Here is what I advised.
- Never date students, and never date teachers. If you date a teacher, you are not dating a person. You are dating your preconceived notions of a person. You have this idea that they are a smarter, better person than you, maybe even (in occult circles) that they are superhuman. Everyone is human. Everyone is an asshole. This includes your teacher. If you date a student, don't believe for a moment that they love you for who you are. And don't expect that they won't feel betrayed and hurt when they discover that you make mistakes. And especially don't expect that they will be in any way forgiving, or that they won't try and tear you apart in their pain and resentment.
- A bisexual woman is the woman to date when you are dating more than one. They are lower maintenance, usually. They enjoy a lot of the things men enjoy, while still wanting to have sex with men. They are a little less likely to be jealous of your other girlfriend, because, rather than instantly thinking, 'how can I get rid of her, and prove to both of them that I am better?' (no matter how much they like each other), they will think, 'A lady. Possibly competition. Maybe. Possibly my dude is the competition, and I want to sleep with her. Maybe I will steal her from my dude, and we will sail to a secluded lesbian isle, and be rid of his terrorist male bullshit. Maybe there can be a hot threesome?' --- I guess what I didn't say is to be careful, because if your women are dating each other they can, and will, gang up on you when you do something dumb, presenting a unified front, with pre-planned arguments, and both having discussed in advance what you will say, and how they will respond. At least, that has been my personal experience.
- If you have a triad, try to arrange to all live together, especially if everyone is in Boston. Not living all in one place blows. Transit time is murder. Everyone will feel neglected and stressed.
- The most important thing about being poly is being open to love, in its many forms. Keep the heart and the mind open. If you are satisfied and committed with two or three partners, quit while you are ahead. Also, poly family rules. Babies. The end. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| April 5th, 8pm.
All people who practice magic(k) should come wearing robes and cloaks, bringing staves and Harry Potter wands.
Dance.
Drink mead.
Open with ginourmous energy raising.
Beat drums.
Play modern music.
Wear awesome hats.
Convince people to come to Hermothon next day.
No muggles allowed. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| To complete my analysis of Shekhina, and whether she bears resemblance to Earth and Nature deities, the answer is no. Allow me to expound.
Shekhina is the personification of Malchut. If you were to look in a Kabbalistic dictionary, this is basically what it would say. The Zohar mentions her interchangeably with "the tenth emanation." And any Hermeticist will tell you that Malchut is the physical world, right...? Indeed. Then why is it, after working downward through all the sefirot to bring something into manifestation, we reach Malchut, and then we wait... for something else to bring our working into manifestation.
The answer lies in two places, firstly, in the Zohar, which I will treat in a moment, and secondly, in an oft repeated bedtime prayer, indeed, the very one that the LBRP (and EBR, for those who know what I'm talking about) is based upon, the Bedtime Shema, which can be found in any Siddur. It reads, roughly, "May Mikhael be at my right, Gavriel be at my left, Uriel before me, Refael behind me, and above me, Hashem's Shekhina."
Stop. The physical world is above you? I think not.
Here is another clue: "Blazing fire struck [Shekhina], refuse came to be, Tohu (Chaos) was produced--abode of slime, nest of refuse. V'Bohu (and Void) sifting sifted from refuse, settling upon it"
Early Kabbalists, who were heavily influenced by Platonic thought, understood Tohu and Bohu as referring to primordial matter and form, respectively. Tohu, primordial matter, was seen as the root of all evil. Bohu, form, was the origin of all good. Both were present, mixed in suspension in Shekhina, one indistinguishable from the other.
The fire of Din or Judgment, strikes her. Tohu and Bohu then settle out, and are rejoined in a purified state. As near I can understand, this happens in a similar fashion to the way in which mercury and sulfur are separated out and joined to salt. Tohu, the primordial matter, is completely without form. Bohu, the primordial form, is completely without substance. The differentiation and reconciliation of the both is an ongoing process in manifestation, resulting from the Fire of the Left striking Malchut.
I'll skip a bit, because this is pretty dense stuff, requiring a lot of commentary, but it goes on to say, "Bohu-- this has shape and form: stones sunk within the shell of Tohu, emerging from the shell in which they are sunk, conveying benefit to the world."
Stones sunk within Tohu... See BT Hagigah 12a, "Bohu-- these are the slimy stones sunk in the abyss, from which water issues." Water, an influence of some kind. Generally, in Jewish allegorical language, Water is merciful, projective. It generally indicates that whatever is being spoken about is above, or to the right, with respect to what it acts upon. Water issues from somewhere deep within, or even below, Malchut? Where is it going?
Conveying benefit... And now we come to it. Once these energies which emanate from Malchut are separated and reconciled, they then emanate the now-limited influences of the ten Sefirot to material world.
That is to say, that Malchut is not the physical world, as is often stated in Hermetic Qabalah. Rather, Malchut emanates a light which, through various permutations and purifications, conveys the influence of all ten sefirot to the physical plane. This process could be seen as the limiting, or focusing, of divine light. This energy from the ten sefirot is the light of Shekhina.
And it now becomes evident why Shekhina is so often, in Kabbalistic allegories, referred to as "The Moon." She, Malchut, is not the physical plane, nor the Earth. She is, rather, that through which the infinite becomes finite, and through which the energies of the divine emanate downward to the physical plane, becoming matter. She is the closest, the most visible manifestation of the sefirot, but is still as far from the Earth as the moon. We can perceive Her, but we cannot touch Her.
What is Ge (Gaia)?
Gaia is the Earth itself, as Eos is dawn. Allow me to expound upon this by relating the birth of Erichthonius.
According to Apollodorus: "Athena came to Hephaestus, desirous of fashioning arms. But he, being forsaken by Aphrodite, fell in love with Athena, and began to pursue [p. 91] her; but she fled. When he got near her with much ado ( for he was lame), he attempted to embrace her; but she, being a chaste virgin, would not submit to him, and he dropped his seed on the leg of the goddess. In disgust, she wiped off the seed with wool and threw it on the ground; and as she fled and the seed fell on the ground, Erichthonius was produced."
Yes, there is the ancient Greek notion that the semen of men was enough to produce offspring, only requiring some vessel to contain the seed. But a jar would not suffice. Only something with the spark of life in it, such as a human, or a god. Here, we see that the Earth itself is just such a living thing. This is Gaia.
Dame Nature, on the other hand, is the personification of all natural processes, not only geological, but also ecological, biological, and astronomical. We do not see her in texts so much as in alchemical drawings with captions. She leaves the footprints which the Alchemist, often a blind, senile old man, follows. The entire conceot is that the alchemical process is one which man may imitate with laborious, studious persuit of that which Nature itsekf does without a second thought.
Each of these latter two are far closer to the material plane-- a concept which, seemingly, is utterly lacking in Kabbalah-- than Malchut.
I may need to write an expanded essay on this. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I'm still researching Saturn creatures.
Each thing I read about is worse than the last. Gorgons really don't have a lot to do with death. Those things that do ... you would have to have balls of steel to call them.
Sirens, Keres, Lamiae?
Yeesh! How do I choose?
The Centaurs I called spoke to two separate people, without those two conversing, of an entire race of Minotaurs, contrary to the historical singular Minotaur. This would be appropriate, and not nearly as ridiculously dangerous... except that I don't see how there could be a race of Minotaurs similar to the first one after Theseus killed Asterion.
I like the idea of Sirens. They were originally handmaidens of Persephone, given wings by Demeter to aide in the search for Kore. They seem like they could be emblematic of the call of the higher worlds... a place that seems better than the one we are in, but can only be reached through death. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| So, we gave calling Centaurs a whirl, in the context of being a Jupiter spirit.
These particular centaurs, once spirits of the river Lamos, were called forth by Zeus to guard the infant Dionysos, and were transformed by Hera into centaurs. They were there after found in the retinue of Dionysos, and were often depicted as drawing his chariot.
As one might expect, I asked them, “Are you willing to serve as spirits of Jupiter?”
They answered, “We are spirits of Jupiter” The emphasis was intended to imply Jupiter, IE Zeus, as opposed to simply the planet.
It seemed fairly successful. Another option is gryphons. We'll see how it goes. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Question: What is the difference between Shekhina, who is the personification of Malchut, Gaia, who is the personification of the Earth, and Mother Nature, who is the personification all natural forces. Or are these all philosophically equivalent, but with different masks? | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| Just as Paracelsus used Gnomes, Sylphs, Salamanders and Undines as spirits of the elements, I am hoping to use creatures of Greek mythology, such as Centaurs, Satyrs, Nymphs and Dryads as planetary ones.
We derive many of the mystical properties of the planets as forces from Greek myth to begin with. Or, at least I do. Thus, this seems like a good course of action.
Here is the rub: while some associations seem obvious to me, others are elusive.
For anyone reading this who has an opinion on the subject: what races of creatures from Greek mythology would you associate with the seven planets? The main restriction is that it cannot be a unique creature, like Pegasus. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| It is amazing what can seem important from one moment to the next.
After a day that involved arguing with the boyfriend about what the meaning of the word "is" is, and several discussions about which sweetie hated which sweetie more, and spending an hour or so talking to various Wiccans and uninitiated magicians about what magic is, and which systems I thought were poo...
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) perseph12 had a seizure. Somehow, 4 hours in the hospital, and worrying, and looking at her giant black eye have brought some perspective.
We're all mortal. We're all helpless. And there comes a point in every magus' life when it is time to concede that sometimes, those beings we talk to in the inner planes, whether we call them "gods," "angels," "fae," or what, can't do a fucking thing about it. The best a human can do is to love and draw support from other humans. It is this, our problems, and our ability to help one another solve them, that is the meaning of life.
There is no profit in discord.
I am sad, and hope Megan feels better. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I am at Arisia.
It's my first, and it's become a highly transformative experience for me. I mean, the last week, in general, has been, but this weekend in particular. I have come to a few rather obvious realizations.
Firstly, about myself. I am not a modest person. I am not a quiet person. I am not soft-spoken. I have been forcing myself to behave in this way because I see spiritual benefit in it. It has been easy, because for most of my life, I have been surrounded by people who are nothing like me, and so hiding myself, on both an interpersonal and physical sense, has become second nature. There has never been anything quite so challenging as hearing tribal drums outside my door, and resisting the urge to run out half-naked and dance.
Secondly, about the imminent divine. First, I realized that my parents were not always right about everything; they are flawed individuals who are, like all individuals, highly self-interested, and as a result, do foolish things. Next, I realized that the gods were not always right about everything; they are flawed individuals who are, like all individuals, highly self-interested, and as a result, do foolish things. It was not until just this weekend that it became evident to me that the Hebrew imminent divine was not always right; She is highly interested in the laws of nature, physical and metaphysical, and may be wont to ignore the individual differences between people, repeating ideals and laws without being able to see the forest for the individual trees. I can't take my inability to live up to Her standards of perfection too seriously. I need to find my own way to Him, as it were, even if that means tripping over ninety million pagan gods along the way. I'm glad no one reads this journal.
Thirdly, about people. Don't talk about philosophy with drunk people. Sober people have a hard time separating their convictions from the truth. They will refuse to concede incredibly logically obvious points, such as that the theory of evolution seems to have validity, if it looks like it will work against their closely held beliefs. When people are drunk, this is only made worse. And when YOU are drunk, your ability to deal with this tactfully may be greatly impaired.
I went dancing last night, after all my parties. A couple came up and hit on me while I was dancing. I never thought I was good at dancing. But I guess, when I am angry and drunk, it all works out. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| I generally loathe to post song lyrics, but I wanted to make a note of this. I had a dream that Apollon was singing this song. It was not, make no mistake, to mark the awesomeness of the song itself. Somehow, at the time, it seemed relevant to how he felt about his current situation.
On a side note, hearing the song accompanied by lyre was... amazing, in and of itself.
I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
What have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns
upon my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
beneath the stains of time
the feelings disappear
you are someone else
I am still right here
What have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way | | comments: Leave a comment |
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Thrice Great Moly
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